government report calls for ‘radical change’ to avoid future disruptions in drinking water supply

THE “worse” was averted during the summer 2022 drought in terms of disruption of drinking water supply and “strong measures” necessary to avoid such a scenario in the future, according to the report of an interministerial mission whose Release echoed on Saturday, April 8. The mission evokes a “awareness” Who “calls for a radical change in our water management methods and practices”, in this report commissioned by the government. The official release is scheduled for Tuesday.

This interministerial mission notes that the disaster was avoided in 2022 “thanks, on the one hand, to the exceptional mobilization of all the players, and, on the other hand, to a high level of filling of the aquifers and reservoirs at the end of winter 2021-2022”. But she adds: “Such conditions could no longer be met if a similar phenomenon were to recur in the coming years, or even as early as 2023”.

A “more precise framing” to help the prefects

The period of more than a month without rain in early 2023 in France and the organization of exceptional events, “likely to act on the peak of drinking water consumption in several large cities during the same period, such as the Rugby World Cup in the summer of 2023, then in 2024, the Olympic and Paralympic Games, require particular vigilance as to the risk of a break in the supply of drinking water”, can we still read in the report.

The administration formulates 18 recommendations intended to better understand the extent of the problem, anticipate and inform. The authors tackle in particular the thorny question of sobriety, recalling the objective of a 10% reduction in levies by 2024, an objective now postponed to 2030 by President Emmanuel Macron during the presentation of the ” plan eau”, on March 30.

The authors also suggest a “more precise national framework” to help prefects overwhelmed with requests for exemption in the event of withdrawal restrictions, and in the face of measures perceived by the public as too severe or too lax, such as the watering of golf courses.